The paper discusses some of the challenges and opportunities that would emerge from the convergence of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) and the Grid. SDIs are introduced as a world-wide phenomenon taking place at a range of levels (global, trans-national, national, regional, and local), focusing in particular on the recent initiative by the European Commission to develop an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE). Whilst SDIs are still largely focusing on distributed access to information and localized processing the emergence of distributed computing via the Grid suggests that this may be the logical evolution for SDIs. Using the example of a recent pilot project demonstrating the potential of the Grid for social scientists, the paper then discusses some of the current challenges facing non-technical users, and some of the lessons learned form this pilot which offer possible solutions to such challenges. Finally, the synergy between SDIs and the Grid, particularly in the field of semantic interoperability and web-services are outlined.